Ted Vaill: Mitt Romney, the Republicans’ default choice for President no one really likes, deserves to be asked the hard questions such as those directed by Jeff Daniels to the panel of GOP candidates in Adam Sorkin’s “Newsroom”,

Andy Love: Elections do have consequences, as they say, and the electorate needs to understand that the consequences this time around couldn’t be more serious. If ever there was a time for the President to run against the Court, it is now.

Julie Driscoll: It’s mind-blowing in the extreme that states – such as Ohio, Mississippi before it, Kansas, Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Oklahoma and others – believe they can just do the big blow-off of Roe v. Wade and strip women of rights that are guaranteed under federal law.

Julie Driscoll: It’s mind-blowing in the extreme that states – such as Ohio, Mississippi before it, Kansas, Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Oklahoma and others – believe they can just do the big blow-off of Roe v. Wade and strip women of rights that are guaranteed under federal law.

Frank Dryden: Since you would assume that elected officials are neither stupid nor irrational, one can only conclude that it is their intention to raise the number of abortions in the country regardless of the cost.

Tina Dupuy: What Planned Parenthood really does is keep poor people out of emergency rooms. The clinics treat people with or without insurance for ranges of health issues. Yes, low-cost community clinics save taxpayers’ money. Lots.

David Love: Meanwhile, theocratic GOP members of Congress are proposing the crudely worded “The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.” Current law allows for federal funding of abortions only in the case of rape or incest.

In the wake of an 8-0 setback by the United States Supreme Court last week, the JPL plaintiffs in the HSPD12 case said they would now wait to see what NASA does in response to the decision. In a communication released to the JPL staff today the employees said “The ball is now in NASA’s court.

According to everything I’ve learned, the term “federalist” referred to those who believed in a strong central government. Jefferson was a federalist and Adams was an anti-federalist. Adams believed that power should be centrally located in the hands of an elite few — alternatively, Jefferson believed that centralized power lead to corruption.

Los Angeles

Cheryl Dorsey: Beck is leaving two years before completing his second term. I bet if you were to ask the parents of Ezell Ford—the unarmed 25-year-old black man killed by LAPD officers in 2014—they’d probably say that they wished Beck had left a lot sooner.

Economic Issues

RJ Eskow: If today’s resistance is to become a lasting movement, we must decide what we’re for. Otherwise, the Resistance will fail to motivate the 38 percent of Americans who didn’t vote in the last election.